Preservice Teachers’ Attitudes and Beliefs Toward Student Diversity and Proposed Instructional Practices

Abstract

This study draws on insights from achievement goal theory and multicultural education to examine the interrelated nature of preservice teachers’ biases and beliefs regarding culturally diverse students and the kind of instructional practices they are likely to pursue. Cluster analysis of cross-sectional data (n = 784) suggests that approximately 25% of preservice teachers explicitly endorsed some stereotypic beliefs about poor and minority students and expressed some discomfort with student diversity. Analyses of variance results provide evidence that preservice teachers were significantly less biased and prejudiced and more likely to endorse adaptive instructional practices by the time they were ready to graduate from the teacher education program than they were during their 1st year in the program. Paired t-test results based on longitudinal data (n = 79) suggest that some gains preservice teachers accrued midway through the program were lost when they were close to graduation. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Keywords

preservice teachers student diversity achievement goals multicultural education

The cultural landscape of United States is fast changing. Throughout the United States, culturally pluralistic schools and classrooms are replacing monocultural schools and classrooms. Demographers predict that by 2035, half the school-age population will be students of color (Villegas & Lucas, 2002). In contrast, the majority of the teachers will still be White, monolingual, middle-class women (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012; U.S. Department of Education). Many White teachers experience some ambivalence toward minority and immigrant students (Hollins & Torres-Guzman, 2005; Sleeter, 2001) and doubt their efficacy in teaching students whose cultural backgrounds differ from their own (Helfrich & Bean, 2011). Cho and DeCastro-Ambrosetti (2005), as well as Ladson-Billings (2000), argue that preservice teachers’ ill-preparedness to meet academic and psychosocial needs of minority and immigrant students and sometimes their lack of understanding of how cultural identities play out within the classroom context may be partly attributed to poor preparation by teacher preparation programs. One question that needs to be addressed in teacher education research and practice is the connection between teachers’ beliefs and attitudes about their students and their own efficacy, and the kinds of practices they use to meet students’ needs in the classroom.

Despite attempts to regulate teacher education programs to prepare preservice teachers to serve in culturally pluralistic classrooms, it is unclear how successful these programs are (Sleeter, 2001), or how many substantively address the need (Zeichner, 2003). However, research does suggest that more multicultural education in preservice teacher education positively affects teachers’ attitudes and sense of efficacy toward helping culturally and linguistically diverse students (Bodur, 2012). The primary purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between White preservice teachers’ beliefs and attitudes toward minority and less affluent students in relation to actual classroom practices they are likely to endorse. A second purpose is to examine whether increased exposure to preservice curricula intended to predispose them toward culturally pluralistic beliefs and practices shapes preservice teachers’ beliefs, helping them become less culturally encapsulated—particularly with regard to ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and “otherness.” In other words, do experiences in teacher-licensure programs help preservice teachers overcome, at least to some degree, prejudicial beliefs and expectations they may have of poor and minority students; decrease their degree of discomfort in interacting with students they perceive as different from them; and encourage them to adopt instructional strategies and classroom practices that are likely to promote learning and emotional well-being among all students?

Preservice Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Cultural Diversity

Preservice teachers are members—either ascribed or by choice—to several cultural communities as well as affinity communities. While affinity communities, based on personal or professional interests, influence individuals’ beliefs, values, and behaviors, membership in ascribed cultural communities defined, for example, by nationality, race, ethnicity, class, religion, and language is often taken for granted because of long years of socialization and thus have deep, often unrecognized effects. Membership within these ascribed communities defines to a large extent preservice teachers’ cultural identity and informs their values, behaviors, and attitudes. Thus, choices they make, actions they take, and experiences they value as teachers, whether inside or outside the classroom, are likely to be informed by past experiences, knowledge base, and learned value beliefs—their socialized cultural identities. Preservice teachers who are White are much less likely to consciously reflect on their cultural identity as a majority privileged group. In a detailed review of 80 studies about the education of preservice teachers, Sleeter (2001) concludes that

It is difficult to say how much impact multicultural education courses have on White students. . . . Almost none of the studies . . . examined the impact of multicultural education coursework on how pre-service students actually teach children in the classroom. (p. 99)

Research demonstrates that preservice teachers have historically brought very little cross-cultural background, knowledge, or experience to their training (Hollins & Torres-Guzman, 2005; Ibarra, 1999). In fact, many researchers have shown that they tend to retain stereotypic beliefs about children from cultural, ethnic, or socioeconomic minority group (Barry & Lechner, 1995; Bell, Horn, & Roxas, 2007; Darling-Hammond, 2006; Gilbert, 1995; Hollins & Torres-Guzman, 2005; King, Hollins, & Hayman, 1997; Sleeter, 1985, 2001; Valli, 1995). Notwithstanding professional training, many preservice teachers continue into the profession with a somewhat limited view of multicultural education and a lack of preparedness for teaching diverse classroom populations (Goodwin, 1994). Valli (1994) asserts that their negative attitudes toward cultural groups other than their own persist as they view student diversity as a problem to be dealt with, or a condition to be fixed, rather than as a resource. Furthermore, an array of evidence indicates that such student characteristics as socioeconomic status and ethnicity influenced teachers’ susceptibility to biased achievement and motivation expectations (DeCastro-Ambrosetti & Cho, 2011; Eccles & Wigfield, 1985; Jussim & Harber, 2005; Magos, 2006; Rubie-Davis, Hattie, & Hamilton, 2006; Tennenbaum & Ruck, 2007; Weinstein, 2002). A recent examination of middle school White teachers’ (n = 241) implicit attitudes toward culturally diverse students (Kumar, Karabenick, & Burgoon, 2012) indicated that White teachers demonstrated a slight implicit preference for White over Arab/Arab American students and moderate implicit preference for White over African American students. Findings from this study reveal that teachers’ implicit preference for White over Arab/Arab American students and their implicit preference for White over African American students were significantly correlated suggesting an overall preference for White students relative to non-White students among White teachers. This study also demonstrated that teachers’ implicit evaluations of different groups affected their classroom behaviors. These findings highlight the need to examine how effectively teacher preparation programs empower preservice teachers to recognize their biases, overcome stereotype beliefs about less affluent and minority students, develop a sense of comfort in interacting with different others, and engage in classroom practices that reflect an openness to culturally diverse beliefs, values, and practices.

Theoretical Perspectives

Faced with the challenge of meeting the academic and psychosocial needs of students from multiple cultures, scholars and researchers from different disciplines—and sometimes disparate perspectives—have proposed reforms to the existing educational system, including changes to teacher education programs. Among these scholars are multicultural educationists and achievement goal theorists.

Multicultural Perspective

Grounded in sociological theory, multicultural education focuses on understanding how social and historical factors have influenced students’ academic success and their perceptions of the purposes of schooling. As Dewey argued, schools’ main institutional purpose is preparing students to participate in society. In line with this argument, multicultural education promotes the development of such democratic and social justice values as equity, justice, respect, and equality (Nieto, 2000).

Several multicultural educationists (e.g., Fordham, 1996; Grant & Sleeter, 1996; Hollins, 1990) direct our attention to status quo school culture as both reflecting and teaching White, middle-class culture, which reinforces White, middle-class students—their knowledge, behaviors, and ways of interacting with teachers and peers—as the norm, valued, and “right.” This is also likely to contribute to the perception held by mainstream students and teachers that other students are culturally inferior in knowledge and behavior (Banks, 2008; Grant & Sleeter, 1996). Consequently, minority-group students often feel stigmatized, devalued, and excluded when some mainstream teachers treat them as victims and/or as incapable academically and socially (Ladson-Billings, 1993, 2000; Steele, 1997; Steele & Aronson, 1995). In an effort to address this issue, scholars have identified many approaches to multicultural education and constructed numerous typologies (e.g., teaching exceptionally and culturally different students, human relations, single-group studies, multicultural, and multicultural and social justice; Sleeter & Grant, 2008). Overall, multicultural educationists call for changes and reforms in school policies and practices that would promote equity among students (Banks, 2004). Thus, policies or practices promoting inequality, among them tracking and ability grouping, must be replaced by policies and practices such as equity pedagogy and culturally responsive teaching that empower students to acquire the requisite knowledge and skills to function effectively and thoughtfully in a democratic society (Banks, 2008; Campbell, 2010). Furthermore, they assert that features of the current education system—scheduling class time, physical environment in the classroom, assessment techniques and test scores, and factors allowing teachers to maintain control of the classroom—should be restructured (Banks, 2004) and that pedagogy should be recast in a social-reconstructionist framework. Specifically, pedagogy should aim to solve social problems and promote equality; teachers should raise students’ consciousness about social problems and provide tools for critiquing and acting on them; and students’ should actively engage in understanding and tackling social problems (Oakes & Lipton, 2006). Democratic, multicultural education fundamentally requires that teachers be disposed toward understanding and valuing cultural pluralism, genuine respect for how cultural diversity is expressed visibly and behaviorally, and rejection of prejudice and enactment of discrimination. It further requires that they hold equally high expectations for all students, while acknowledging and accepting that poverty and bureaucracy within diverse urban settings will make teaching and learning more difficult (Larkin, 1995). To realize the vision of multicultural education through equity pedagogy and culturally responsive teaching, it is essential, according to multiculturalists, to redefine school culture as one that students find empowering, validating, and inclusive (King et al., 1997).

Achievement Goal Theory

Achievement goal theory is a social cognitive theory of motivation. Achievement goal theorists, a group of researchers with a less explicitly political agenda than that of multiculturalists, have also proposed school reforms designed to make the culture and climate of schools more conducive to student learning and motivation (e.g., C. Ames, 1992; Maehr & Midgley, 1991, 1996; Midgley, 1993; Pintrich, 2000). Achievement goal theory emerged as an important theory in the 1980s and 1990s when several researchers (C. Ames, 1984; R. Ames & Ames, 1993; Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Maehr & Midgley, 1991; Midgley, 1993; Nicholls, 1984; Pintrich & Garcia, 1991) attempted to understand students’ reasons for engaging in academic behavior and their perceptions of what purposes for schooling were emphasized in schools and classrooms. Based on their research, achievement goal theorists identified two distinct purposes or achievement goals: mastery goals and performance goals. These two approaches represent different conceptions of school success and very different reasons for engaging in academic activity. When students believe that the primary reason for schoolwork is to learn, improve, and be challenged, they are mastery-focused. However, when students perceive that the primary purpose of schoolwork is to look smarter than their classmates, demonstrate their ability, and compare favorably with others in their class, they are performance-focused (Anderman & Maehr, 1994; Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Pintrich, 2000).

Goals stressed in the learning environment influence how students define their personal achievement goals, and many schools differ in the extent to which they emphasize mastery and performance goals (Anderman & Maehr, 1994; Kumar, 2006; Maehr & Midgley, 1991). For example, school policies and practices can communicate to students that the purpose of being in school and doing schoolwork is learning, mastering knowledge and skills, and improving; alternately, they can communicate that the purpose is demonstrating ability and comparing performance with others in the class. Achievement goal theorists Maehr and Midgley (1991, 1996) specifically examine the nature of tasks in which students engage, how classroom time is conceptualized, how teachers and students interact, and how salient normative standards of grading and social comparisons are in the classroom. They observed that teachers create a mastery-focused environment when they engage students in tasks that are meaningful and challenging, require students to share responsibility for decisions made, adopt instructional strategies that embrace a range of needs and interests, recognize effort and avoid social comparison among students, promote heterogeneous ability grouping, and use criterion-referenced norms for evaluation. In contrast, they observed that teachers who focus on social comparison among students, endorse ability grouping, and use norm-referenced criteria for evaluation create a more performance-focused learning environment (C. Ames, 1992; Meece, Anderman, & Anderman, 2006).

Therefore, how teachers—and schools as a whole—define and perceive different aspects of the learning environment and what they practice in this context determines whether the school is predominantly mastery- or performance-focused. We argue that the attitude and mind-set associated with mastery-focused orientation is one of openness to differences among students and of acceptance of diversity in students’ thoughts and actions. Such a mind-set, we believe, is aligned with the vision of multicultural education. To date, no research within the achievement goal theory perspective has examined the relationship among the extent of preservice teachers’ exposure to teacher education curricula, their beliefs about diversity, and their proposed mastery- and performance-focused practices.

Attitudes Toward Diversity and Classroom Instructional Practices: Proposed Complementarity of Multicultural Perspective and Achievement Goal Theory

A central goal of this study, identified as critical for 21st-century education by Darling-Hammond (2006), is to determine coherence and integration in preservice teachers’ educational experiences as they progress through teacher education programs. The multicultural, social justice vision of creating a school culture necessary in a culturally pluralistic society emphasized in the required sociological-foundations course parallels the vision of schooling informed by achievement goal theory and research. It also coheres with the translation of achievement goal theory into school policies and practices emphasized in the required psychological-foundations course. It is unclear, however, to what extent faculty and students involved in teacher education programs recognize these parallels let alone capitalize on potential gains if the two are brought into coherence.

We draw on multiculturalist and achievement goal theory perspectives, the former within the sociological-foundations discipline and the latter in the realm of educational psychology, to investigate the relationship between these two usually-not-associated areas of study. We propose that multicultural education and achievement goal theory are two sides of a coin. Multicultural educationists base school reforms on an understanding of education as antiracist, comprehensive, pervasive, and rooted in social justice (Nieto, 2002). Goal theorists base school reforms on an understanding of education as a process of progressing, growing in understanding, and equipping children to become lifelong learners (Maehr & Midgley, 1996). Though the stated purposes differ, we propose that they are complementary and that they should be taught as such. If we want children to become “reflective and active citizens who contribute to and participate in making our nation more democratic” (Banks, 1997, p. 31), we need children to become lifelong learners. As Midgley (1993), a prominent achievement goal theorist, points out, we cannot do this if students are reminded every day that there are winners and losers and that getting good grades and doing well on standardized tests is the goal of education.

We posit that preservice teachers who wish to create a mastery-focused environment and develop a learning community in which every student feels empowered and validated are likely to reflect positive intercultural attitudes and be capable of critically examining personal prejudices and stereotypic beliefs. They need to possess a sense of comfort in interacting with others whom they perceive as different in values, beliefs, or physical appearance. Belief in mastery-focused goals and the importance of mastery-focused learning environments requires openness to different ways of thinking and being—an appreciation of diverse worldviews. Preservice teachers who do not question students’ capabilities and who endorse mastery-focused instructional practices are less likely to resort to normative social comparisons; rather, they are more likely to emphasize collaboration and mutual respect among students and to create a learning environment that does not perpetuate inequality in practice and pedagogy. In contrast, preservice teachers’ endorsement of performance-focused instructional practices incorporates a strong element of social comparison in the classroom. For example, performance-focused teachers and preservice teachers are more likely to define learning in terms of high and low grades and to distinguish “smart students” from “not-so-smart students.” As the onus of school success is placed squarely on students’ shoulders, performance-focused teachers are less likely to feel the need to adapt their instructional strategies to meet the needs of culturally diverse students. These evaluative practices, we believe, are particularly detrimental for minority and less affluent students as they encourage labeling and categorizing students based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity, socioeconomic, and immigrant status. Consequently, preservice teachers who hold stereotypes about the ability of poor and minority students to succeed in school, and who value students depending on their social and cultural backgrounds are more likely to endorse performance-focused practices.

To summarize, the fourfold purposes of this study are to examine

the nature and strength of the relationship between White preservice teachers’ beliefs and attitudes (e.g., stereotypic beliefs toward minority and less affluent students, unwillingness to adapt instruction for culturally diverse students, beliefs related to students’ assimilation into mainstream culture, and feelings of psychological discomfort in interacting with students who are different from them) in relation to actual classroom practices (e.g., mastery- vs. performance-focused) they are likely to endorse.

whether level in the licensure is related to preservice teachers’ attitudes and beliefs regarding student diversity, proposed classroom practices, and feelings of efficacy as prospective teachers.

whether the level in the licensure program moderates the relationship between preservice teachers’ attitudes and beliefs regarding student diversity, proposed classroom practices, and feelings of efficacy as prospective teachers.

whether the time spent in terms of moving from a lower to a higher level in a teacher-licensure program helps preservice teachers overcome, at least to some degree, prejudicial beliefs and expectations they may have of poor and minority students, encourages them to engage in more mastery- and less performance-focused instructional practices, and to promote respect and collaboration in the classroom, and enhances their feelings of efficacy as prospective teachers.

Method

Sample and Data-Collection Procedures

The sample of this study includes preservice teachers enrolled in coursework toward licensure in a Midwestern university of approximately 20,000 students in a northern, midsized city. The data collection was based on a sequential design, including both cross-sectional and longitudinal data (see Figure 1). Across the four data-collection waves in the fall and spring of two consecutive years, 83.1% of the participating preservice teachers were White, 5.2% were African American, and 4.4% belong to other ethnic groups. Across the four waves, 7.3% of the preservice teachers present on the day the surveys were administered in the classroom withdrew their participation. Despite assurances that the information they provided would remain confidential, they were unwilling to reveal the last six digits of their social security number that was requested for purposes of longitudinal data collection. The final sample for this study includes only White preservice teachers (N = 868) as the number of African American and other ethnic group preservice teachers were too few to conduct meaningful comparative analyses.

Figure 1.

Sequential data-collection design

Course Selections for Survey Administration

The surveys were administered by trained research assistants to preservice teachers enrolled in the Orientation Seminar (OS) in the 1st year of the licensure program (freshmen or sophomores); the Social Foundations course, “Schooling and Democratic Society” (SDS), approximately midway through the licensure program (juniors and sometimes seniors); and the Student Teaching Seminar (STS), in the final year of the licensure program (seniors or later). All the courses targeted for survey administration were core courses that students enrolled in the teacher-licensure program were required to take.

At the time of the study, at Level 1, the very first course that all preservice teachers entering the licensure program enrolled into was the OS. At the second level, the SDS course and the applied educational psychology course were core requirements for all prospective teachers. SDS was deemed more appropriate than educational psychology for survey administration because a major emphasis of SDS curriculum was a critical examination of disciplinary approaches to issues of cultural diversity (Tozer & Miretzky, 2000) grounded in multicultural social-reconstructionist praxis and the primary focus of the survey is preservice teachers’ attitude toward student diversity. The philosophical underpinning of the course, the coursework, and basic assignments required of preservice teachers was consistent across all sections of the SDS course. Furthermore, although the educational psychology curriculum incorporated educational implications and applications of several psychological theories, including motivational theories such as achievement goal theory, faculty teaching the various sections of this course did not engage in a coordinated and consistent effort to link these theories to the education of culturally diverse students, including poor and minority students. The STS courses, which were the final subject-specific methods courses that preservice teachers were required to take, were selected for the survey administration at the third level as these courses coincided with their field experiences teaching in schools.

The survey administration timing was determined by the nature and purpose of the three courses. OS participants completed the surveys during the first 2 weeks of the semester, before any substantial exposure to the licensure program. In the SDS courses, surveys were administered during the last 3 weeks of the semester. This timing ensured that, prior to completing the survey, preservice teachers received substantial exposure to concepts and constructs in multicultural education, giving them the knowledge and tools to understand their biases and prejudices, as well as the implications these could have for their practices as teachers. Preservice teachers in the STS course also completed the survey in the latter half of the semester after they began to apply the theoretical and practical knowledge accrued in the licensure program.

Sample Selection for Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Data Analysis

The OS course was offered only in the fall semesters, whereas SDS and STS were offered in both fall and spring semesters. Therefore, the study includes two waves of data from the OS course and four waves from SDS and STS courses. Of the total sample, most preservice teachers (n_{cross-sectional} = 784, n_OS = 192, n_SDS = 341, and n_STS = 251) participated only once during the four data-collection waves. In an effort to have two distinct samples, one for cross-sectional analysis and the other for longitudinal analysis, data from preservice teachers who participated at only one time point were included for cross-sectional data analysis. The reason for not including participants who had taken the survey more than once for cross-sectional data analysis was to control for any learning or item response change that may have occurred due to practice.

Eighty-four White preservice teachers participated in the study on at least two occasions. No preservice teachers within the 2-year, four-wave survey period contributed data at all three time points, probably because a 2- to 3-year gap exists between OS and SDS. Five preservice teachers completed the survey in the OS during the fall of the 1st year and in SDS the following year. As this was a very small sample, these participants were not included in the longitudinal data analyses. The remaining students (n _longitudinal = 79) completed the same survey at two time points, first in SDS and subsequently in STS. Data from these participants were utilized for longitudinal data analysis.

Measures

Items measuring preservice teachers’ beliefs regarding minority, low-socioeconomic-status (LSES) students; their comfort in interacting with culturally diverse students; and their belief that cultural minority students should assimilate to mainstream culture were developed based on an extensive literature review (Byrnes & Kiger, 1994; Gibson & Dembo, 1984; Grady, 1971; Pohan & Aguilar, 2001) and piloted on a sample of preservice teachers. All measures of diversity were created using exploratory factor analysis, with the first wave of data followed by confirmatory factor analysis of the constructs with the second wave of data. Scales measuring the likelihood of adopting mastery- versus performance-focused learning environment, promoting respect and collaboration in the classroom, and efficacy beliefs as a teacher were adapted from the teacher measures in Patterns of Adaptive Learning Survey (PALS; Midgley et al., 2000). All the measures are on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all true), to 3 (somewhat true), to 5 (very true). The reliability reported for each measure is the average Cronbach’s alpha across the four waves.

Preservice Teachers’ Beliefs and Attitudes Regarding Diversity

Beliefs about ethnic minority students

This five-item scale consists of statements indicative of commonly held stereotypical beliefs about devalued minorities such as “In general, White/European American students place a higher value on education than do people of color.” The Cronbach’s alpha for this scale is .78.

Beliefs about LSES students

The four-item scale measuring preservice teachers’ beliefs about students from less affluent backgrounds is also based on some commonly held stereotypes and includes items such as “Generally, students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are not interested in school and schoolwork as students from middle and higher socioeconomic backgrounds.” The Cronbach’s alpha for this scale is .70.

Beliefs about minority assimilation into mainstream culture

Three items in this four-item scale are drawn from earlier research examining teachers’ and preservice teachers’ beliefs regarding the importance of assimilating into a school’s mainstream culture. They include (a) “The rapid learning of English should be a priority for non-English-proficient or limited-English-proficient students even if it means they lose the ability to speak their native language” (Byrnes & Kiger, 1994, p. 230); (b) “Minority groups wishing to be truly integrated into American society should subordinate their cultural origins and work more in adapting to the American way of life” (Grady, 1971, p. 150); and (c) “People of color are adequately represented in most textbooks today” (Pohan & Aguilar, 2001, p. 179). The fourth item, “Students should not be allowed to speak a language other than English while in school” was developed for this study. The reliability of this scale is .65.

Discomfort in interacting with diverse students and faculty

Because no scale existed for use in empirical studies, we constructed a scale assessing preservice teachers’ discomfort in interacting with diverse students and faculty. This measure examines preservice teachers’ overall feelings of psychological discomfort in interacting closely with students and instructors whom they perceive to be culturally different. This scale differs from existing measures of preservice teachers’ attitudes and beliefs; it does not focus on any specific cultural group (e.g., specific ethnic minority groups, special education students, or language minority students). Rather, it measures preservice teachers’ discomfort in instructing and interacting with others whom they perceive as different from themselves. Such a measure is important because in their professional lives, teachers will encounter a broad spectrum of diversity in their classrooms and schools. This scale consists of five items. Some examples of items on this scale are “I prefer to work with students who share my culture” and “I feel uncomfortable interacting with students whose backgrounds are different from mine.” The Cronbach’s alpha for this scale is .83.

Preservice Teachers’ Projected Instructional Strategies, Promoting Respect and Collaboration in the Classroom, and Efficacy Beliefs as Prospective Teachers

The scale measuring unwillingness to adapt instruction to the needs of diverse students was developed for this study. The scales assessing preservice teachers’ mastery- and performance-focused approaches to teaching, promoting respect and collaboration in the classroom, and feelings of efficacy as prospective teachers are adapted from the teacher measures in PALS developed by Midgley and colleagues (2000). The wording of the items in the present survey is directed toward preservice teachers’ projected approaches and strategies as opposed to wordings in the original items directed to approaches and strategies adopted by inservice teachers. These measures have well-established psychometric properties (Anderman & Midgley, 2002).

Unwillingness to adapt instruction to meet the needs of diverse students

The six items on this scale tap into preservice teachers’ willingness or lack thereof to adapt and accommodate their instructions and interactions to meet the needs of a culturally diverse student body. Items on this scale include “It is unfair to expect teachers to adapt their teaching for students with different cultural backgrounds.” The Cronbach’s alpha for this scale is .69.

Mastery- and performance-focused approaches to teaching

The eight-item scale assessing preservice teachers’ mastery-focused approaches to teaching examined the extent to which they reported that they would emphasize effort, understanding, improvement, and enjoyment of learning in their classrooms (Cronbach’s α = .81). The scale includes items such as “I will stress the importance of understanding the work and not just memorizing it.”

The six-item scale assessing preservice teachers’ performance-focused approaches to teaching examined the extent to which teachers believed they would emphasize competition and social comparison in their classrooms (Cronbach’s α = .88). The scale includes such items as “I will help students understand how their performance compares to others.”

Promoting respect and collaboration in the classroom

Promoting respect in the classroom and promoting collaboration are both five-item scales with Cronbach’s alphas of .87 and .80, respectively. Promoting respect in the classroom includes such items as, “I will talk to students in my classes about supporting and caring for each other.” Items on the scale measuring preservice teachers’ intent to promote collaboration include items such as “I will allow students to use class time to discuss their work with each other.”

Preservice teachers’ self-efficacy

This five-item scale assesses preservice teachers’ beliefs regarding their ability to have a positive impact on students’ learning and promote students’ achievement and academic progress (Cronbach’s α = .71). The scale includes items such as “If I try really hard, I will be able to get through to even the most difficult student in my class.”

Analyses and Results

Relationship Between Preservice Teachers’ Attitudes and Beliefs Toward Diversity and Proposed Instructional Practices (Cross-Sectional Data)

Correlations among variables are presented in Table 1. Preservice teachers who held stereotypical beliefs about minority students were also significantly more likely to hold such beliefs about students from lower socioeconomic status (r = .68, p < .001). Discomfort with student diversity was significantly positively correlated with preservice teachers’ stereotypical beliefs regarding minority (r = .47, p < .001) and LSES (r = .48, p < .001) students. Belief that minority students should assimilate into mainstream culture was significantly positively associated with prejudicial beliefs about minority (r = .32, p < .001) and LSES (r = .45, p < .001) students and significantly positively related to discomfort with student diversity (r = .52, p < .001). Endorsement of mastery-focused instructional strategies was significantly negatively associated with stereotypic beliefs about minority (r = −.19, p < .001) and LSES (r = −.30, p < .001) students, and discomfort with student diversity (r = −.21, p < .001); endorsement of performance-focused strategies was positively associated with stereotypic beliefs about minority (r = .23, p < .001) and LSES (r = .34, p < .001) students, and discomfort with student diversity (r = .26, p < .001). A disinclination to adapt instruction to the needs of individual students was significantly positively associated with professed use of performance-focused strategies (r = .26, p < .001) and significantly negatively associated with proposed use of mastery-focused strategies (r = −.38, p < .001) promoting mutual respect (r = −.36, p < .001) and collaboration (r = −.25, p < .01) in the classroom.

Table 1.

Correlation Among Variables (n = 784)

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
Stereotype (minority)	1
Stereotype (SES)	0.68	1
Discomfort with diversity	0.47	0.48	1
Assimilation	0.32	0.45	0.52	1
Mastery-focused practices	−0.19	−0.30	−0.21	−0.43	1
Performance-focused practices	0.23	0.34	0.26	0.18	−0.36	1
Unwillingness to adapt instruction	0.32	0.28	0.35	0.32	−0.38	0.26	1
Promoting respect	−0.26	−0.19	−0.28	−0.18	0.73	−0.38	−0.36	1
Promoting collaboration	−0.22	−0.15	−0.17	−0.14	0.65	−0.24	−0.25	0.56	1.00
Teaching efficacy	−0.30	−0.35	−0.33	−0.24	0.58	−0.46	−0.46	0.50	0.37

Note: SES = socioeconomic status. All correlations were significant at p < .001 level.

Comparison of Attitudes, Beliefs, and Proposed Instructional Practices, and Teacher Efficacy Across Program Level Based on Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Data

Results of one-way ANOVA based on the cross-sectional data are presented in Table 2, and the results of paired-sample t tests based on longitudinal data are presented in Table 3.

Table 2.

One-Way ANOVA Comparing Attitudes, Beliefs, Proposed Instructional Practices, and Teacher Efficacy Across Program Level Based on Cross-Sectional Data (n = 784)

	M (SD)
	OS (first year in the program)	SDS (midway through the program)	STS (final year in the program)	F value
Stereotype (minority)	2.33^a (.78)	2.27 (.67)	2.16^a (.64)	3.73*
Stereotype (SES)	2.65^a (.79)	2.56 (.67)	2.46^a (.64)	3.98*
Discomfort with diversity	2.40^a (.54)	2.34 (.57)	2.14^a (.52)	14.47***
Assimilation	2.63^a,b (.67)	2.49^b,c (.64)	2.34^a,c (.59)	11.10***
Mastery-focused practices	4.02^a,b (.55)	4.26^b (.52)	4.18^a (.51)	12.43***
Performance-focused practices	2.44^a,b (.66)	2.12^b (.60)	2.08^a (.52)	23.86***
Unwillingness to adapt instruction	2.37^a,b (.57)	2.12^b (.53)	2.08^a (.56)	17.70***
Promoting respect	4.16^a,b (.71)	4.43^b (.61)	4.36^a (.60)	10.99***
Promoting collaboration	3.85^a,b (.68)	4.12^b (.66)	4.09^a (.65)	11.09***
Teaching efficacy	3.66^a,b (.47)	3.82^b (.49)	3.75^a (.44)	6.99***

Note: OS = Orientation Seminar; SDS = Schooling and Democratic Society; STS = Student Teaching Seminar; SES = socioeconomic status.

Significant differences between OS and STS preservice teachers.

Significant differences between OS and SDS preservice teachers.

Significant differences between SDS and STS preservice teachers.

p < .05.** p < .01.***p < .001.

Table 3.

Paired-Sample t test: Change in Attitudes, Beliefs, and Proposed Instructional Practices, and Teacher Efficacy Based on Longitudinal Data (n = 79)

	M (SD)
	SDS (Time 2)	STS (Time 3)	t test
Stereotype (minority)	2.25 (.59)	2.16 (.60)	ns
Stereotype (SES)	2.53 (.55)	2.34 (.61)	2.35**
Discomfort with diversity	2.29 (.54)	2.18 (.60)	ns
Assimilation	2.39 (.56)	2.28 (.59)	ns
Mastery-focused practices	4.39 (.42)	4.25 (.54)	2.08*
Performance-focused practices	2.08 (.52)	2.24 (.67)	−2.44**
Unwillingness to adapt instruction	2.01 (.50)	1.99 (.59)	ns
Promoting respect	4.57 (.50)	4.38 (.65)	2.49***
Promoting collaboration	4.31 (.48)	4.18 (.57)	ns
Teaching efficacy	3.94 (.43)	3.67 (.46)	4.95***

Note: SES = socioeconomic status.

p < .05.**p < .01.***p < .001.

One-Way ANOVA: Mean Differences in Beliefs and Proposed Instruction Practices Across Program Levels (Cross-Sectional Data)

One-way ANOVA yielded main effects for program level on preservice teachers’ stereotype beliefs regarding minority students, F(2, 781) = 3.73, p < .03; LSES students, F(2, 781) = 3.98, p < .02; discomfort with diversity, F(2, 781) = 14.47, p < .001; and the belief that minority students should assimilate into mainstream culture, F(2, 781) = 4.48, p < .001. One-way ANOVA also yielded main effects for program level on preservice teachers’ endorsement of mastery-focused practices, F(2, 781) = 12.43, p < .001; performance-focused practices, F(2, 781) = 23.86, p < .001; unwillingness to adapt instruction for culturally diverse students, F(2, 781) = 17.70, p < .001; promoting respect, F(2, 781) = 10.99, p < .001; and collaboration in the classroom, F(2, 781) = 11.09, p < .001; and feelings of efficacy as teachers, F(2, 781) = 6.99, p < .001.

Scheffe’s post hoc comparisons revealed significant mean differences between OS and STS preservice teachers across all variables (Table 2). On average, OS preservice teachers were significantly more likely to be biased toward minority and less affluent students and to endorse less adaptive classroom instructional practices compared with STS preservice teachers. OS preservice teachers were also significantly more likely to believe that minority students should completely assimilate into mainstream culture and to endorse less adaptive classroom instructional practices compared with SDS preservice teachers. SDS and STS preservice teachers reported feeling significantly more efficacious in the teaching role than did OS teachers.

Paired t-Test Analysis: Change in Beliefs and Proposed Instruction Practices (Longitudinal Data)

The mean change over time in preservice teachers’ beliefs toward diversity, proposed mastery-focused practices, unwillingness to adapt instruction for culturally diverse students, promoting respect and collaboration in the classroom, and feelings of efficacy from SDS to STS (Table 3) follow a similar trend as the reported results based on cross-sectional data (Table 2). However, some of the nonsignificant mean differences obtained from the cross-sectional comparisons (Table 2) were significant when examining mean change over time as preservice teachers transitioned from SDS to STS (Table 3).

There was no significant mean change from SDS and STS in preservice teachers’ stereotypic beliefs toward minority students. However, transition to STS was associated, on average, with a significant decrease (t = 2.35, p < .01) in stereotypic beliefs toward LSES students. There was a significant decrease in preservice teachers’ preference for mastery-focused goals (t = 2.08, p < .01) and a significant increase in their preference for performance goals (t = −2.44, p < .01) as they moved into STS. On average, preservice teachers felt less efficacious (t = −4.95, p < .01) and were less likely to report that they would promote respect in their classrooms (t = 2.49, p < .01) when they moved from SDS into STS.

Cluster Analysis of Cross-Sectional Data

Cluster membership based on preservice teachers’ attitudes and beliefs regarding student diversity

Cluster analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between preservice teachers’ attitudes and beliefs toward student diversity and their projected approaches to teaching and classroom interaction and their feelings of efficacy as prospective teachers. To this end, an R-type cluster analysis was conducted using, as the clustering variables, stereotypical beliefs regarding minority and less affluent students, their beliefs regarding assimilation, and their discomfort in interacting with culturally diverse students. The four measures were converted to standardized scores with standardized means and variances (M = 0, SD = 1; Hair & Black, 2000) to increase the stability of the cluster analysis.

A two-stage cluster analysis was performed that combined hierarchical clustering using Ward’s method, followed by cluster optimization by the k-means algorithm (Asendorph, Borkenau, Ostendorf, & van Aken, 2001). The groupings that result from cluster analyses are often unstable. Thus, the sample was randomly divided into half samples and separate hierarchical analyses (using both Ward’s method and nonhierarchical k-means algorithm) were conducted for both of these subsamples. Examination of the agglomeration tables, the dendograms, and the interpretability of the cluster solutions indicated that both half samples were best represented by three clusters. The selected cluster solution was further cross-validated. Participants in each randomly selected half were cross-classified according to their similarity to clusters in the opposite half (based on squared Euclidean distances). Cohen’s kappa of .83 and .85 in the two cross-classified subsamples indicate a very good fit for the three-cluster solution (Asendorph et al., 2001).

The final clusters used in later analyses included the following:

A group that experienced the lowest levels of negative stereotypical beliefs regarding minority and less affluent students, the lowest level of discomfort in interacting with culturally diverse students, and much lower-than-average beliefs that minority students should assimilate into the mainstream culture (Cluster 1: 29.30%).

A group that experienced average levels of stereotypical beliefs regarding minority and less affluent students, average belief that minority students should assimilate into the mainstream culture, and an average level of discomfort in interacting with culturally diverse students (Cluster 2: 45.57%).

The group that experienced highest levels of stereotypical beliefs regarding minority and less affluent students, experienced highest level of discomfort in interacting with culturally diverse students, and more strongly endorsed the belief that minority students should assimilate into the mainstream culture (Cluster 3: 25.13%).

Means and standard deviations for the clustering variables within each cluster are presented in Table 4. Figure 2 presents the profile for each of the three clusters.

Table 4.

Means and Standard Deviations of Clustering Variables in the Three Clusters (Cross-Sectional Data)

	Stereotypic beliefs about minority students		Stereotypic beliefs about low-SES students		Discomfort with diversity		Assimilation
	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD
Cluster 1 (n = 214)	1.55	.40	1.84	.48	1.76	.42	2.01	.56
Cluster 2 (n = 373)	2.24	.40	2.58	.44	2.33	.37	2.44	.48
Cluster 3 (n = 197)	3.04	.52	3.25	.53	2.80	.47	3.04	.56

Note: SES = socioeconomic status.

Figure 2.

Mean of clustering variables for the three clusters

Two-Way ANOVA: Examining the Main and Interactive Effects of Cluster Membership and Level in Program

A 2 × 2 (Cluster membership × Level in program) factorial ANOVA tested the effects of cluster membership and level in program on their projected mastery- and performance-focused approaches to instruction, unwillingness to adapt instruction for culturally diverse students, promoting respect and collaboration in the classroom, and feelings of efficacy as teachers. Results indicated a significant main effect for cluster membership. In Table 5, we present the means, standard deviations, and the F statistics for the dependent variables for the three cluster groups. The main effects of level in program parallel the results reported in Table 2. There was no significant interaction between cluster membership and level in program for any of the dependent variables.

Table 5.

Means and Standard Deviations of Proposed Instructional Practices and Teacher Efficacy in the Three Clusters

	Mastery-focused practices		Performance-focused practices		Unwillingness to adapt instruction		Promoting respect		Promoting collaboration		Teaching efficacy
	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD
Cluster 1 (n = 214)	4.40	.52	1.88	.59	1.84	.52	4.57	.59	4.24	.70	4.02	.47
Cluster 2 (n = 373)	4.13	.51	2.22	.56	2.18	.48	4.34	.59	4.02	.63	3.71	.41
Cluster 3 (n = 197)	4.00	.52	2.48	.56	2.51	.53	4.10	.70	3.87	.64	3.57	.46

Mastery-focused approaches to instruction

Results from univariate ANOVA point to significant mean differences among clusters, F(df = 2, 772) = 27.78, p < .001; η² = 6.8%, and level in program, F(df = 2, 772) = 13.82, p < .001; η² = 3.5%, in preservice teachers’ projected adoption of mastery-focused instructional and classroom practices. Pairwise comparisons indicated that preservice teachers in Cluster 1 were, on average, significantly more likely to report their preference for mastery-focused approaches to instruction compared with preservice teachers in Clusters 2 and 3. Preservice teachers in Cluster 2 were, on average, significantly more likely to report their preference for mastery-focused approaches to instruction compared with preservice teachers in cluster 3.

Performance-focused approaches to instruction

Cluster membership, F(df = 2, 772) = 50.97, p < .001, and level in the program, F(df = 2, 329) = 18.39, p < .02, were both significantly predictive that preservice teachers would adopt performance-focused instruction. Cluster membership explained 11.8% (η²) of the variance and level in program explained 4.6%t (η²) of the variance in preservice teachers’ reported adoption of performance-focused goals for instruction.

Pairwise and post hoc comparisons revealed that on average, preservice teachers in Cluster 1 reported that they would engage in significantly less performance-focused instructional practices than both Clusters 2 and 3.

Unwillingness to adapt instruction to culturally diverse students

Results indicated significant differences among clusters, F(df = 2, 775) = 82.54, p < .001, η² = 17.6%, and level in program, F(df = 2, 775) =12.00, p < .001, η²= 3.0%, in preservice teachers’ reported unwillingness to adapt their instruction to meet the needs of a diverse student body. Cluster 1 members reported the least unwillingness and Cluster 3 members reported the most unwillingness to adapt instruction to the needs of culturally diverse students.

Promoting respect and collaboration in the classroom

Here again, cluster membership was significantly predicative of preservice teachers’ desire to promote respect, F(df = 2, 775) = 23.65, p < .001, η² = 5.8%, and collaboration, F(df =2, 775) =11.46, p < .001, η² = 2.9%, in the classroom. Preservice teachers in Cluster 1 were significantly more likely to promote respect and collaboration than the other two clusters, and preservice teachers in Cluster 2 were significantly more likely to do so than Cluster 3 members. Level in program also yielded significant main effects on preservice teachers’ desire to promote respect, F(df = 2, 775) = 11.82, p < .001, η² = 3.0%, and collaboration, F(df = 2, 775) = 11.80, p < .001, η² = 3.0%, in the classroom.

Feelings of efficacy as prospective teachers

Univariate ANOVA results revealed significant mean differences among clusters, F(df = 2, 772) = 53.51, p < .001, η² = 12.3%, and level in program, F(df = 2, 772) = 9.09, p < .001, η² = 2.3%, in preservice teachers’ feelings of teaching efficacy. Cluster 1 preservice teachers experienced, on average, significantly higher feelings of efficacy compared with preservice teachers in the other two clusters. Cluster 2 preservice teachers were significantly more likely to feel a sense of efficacy in their role as teachers compared with Cluster 3 preservice teachers.

Overall, these results indicate that preservice teachers who were less prejudiced in their beliefs about poor and minority students, did not believe culturally diverse students should completely assimilate into mainstream culture, and reported less discomfort in interacting with diverse students were, on average, more likely to endorse mastery-focused goals, promote respect and collaboration in class, and report feeling greater efficacy in prospective teaching roles. They were also less likely to endorse performance-focused goals and less likely to consider it problematic to adapt their instruction to culturally diverse students.

Discussion

This study uses cross-sectional and longitudinal data to examine the interrelated nature of preservice teachers’ biases and beliefs regarding culturally diverse students—including minority and LSES students—and the kind of instructional practices and policies they are likely to pursue. This study, as a consequence of its sequential data-collection design, tests the effectiveness of teacher education programs in changing preservice teachers’ beliefs and attitudes regarding diversity and proposed classroom practices from the time they enter the teacher-licensure program to the time they complete the program and join the teaching profession.

The results of this study give us some reassurance and hope. Our findings support the hypothesis that the learning that occurs in a teacher-licensure program positively shapes preservice teachers’ attitudes toward culturally diverse students and encourages them to adopt adaptive classroom practices. ANOVA results based on cross-sectional data provide evidence that preservice teachers were significantly less biased and prejudiced by the time they were ready to graduate from the teacher education program than they were during their 1st year in the program. During their tenure in the teacher education program, preservice teachers recognized the importance of maintaining a respectful and collaborative environment in the classroom—one that is open to different ways of thinking— and became aware of the pitfalls of normative social comparisons among students. In short, STS preservice teachers compared with OS preservice teachers demonstrated increased recognition of the need to maintain learning environments that validate and empower all students.

However, paired t-test results based on longitudinal data comparing students’ attitudes and proposed classroom practices as they move from SDS to STS tell us a slightly different story. While the spirit of democracy, the importance of critical thinking and self-reflection introduced in the SDS course (Campbell, 2010) is reflected in preservice teachers’ increased desire to promote respect and collaboration in their classrooms and adapt instruction for a culturally diverse student body, and in their desire to encourage students to focus on critical thinking as a means to growing in knowledge and moving away from social comparisons with their peers, some of these gains seem to dissipate by the time students complete their STS. Thus, findings from cross-sectional data analysis indicate that overall experiences in the teacher education program do have a positive impact on preservice teachers’ attitudes and proposed classroom behaviors and practices. However, as seen from the results of longitudinal data analysis, when preservice teachers’ learning is put to the test, the stresses associated with first-time field experiences in schools diminish their capacity for critical thinking and self-reflection. This suggests that it is important for teacher education programs to explore the possible benefits of adding additional multicultural courses, with a similar focus, especially in the latter part of the teacher education program and perhaps even into the induction period.

Results of the study also indicate cause for concern. More than 25% of preservice teachers in this study explicitly endorse stereotypic beliefs about poor and minority students. At a time when schools are becoming increasingly diverse, a high percentage of prospective teachers reported feeling uncomfortable with student diversity. These findings suggest that preservice teachers require additional support to engage in self-reflection that will bring to consciousness their often-unconscious attitudes and belief systems and enable them to honestly understand and acknowledge personal prejudices. This additional support may encourage development of a multicultural professional identity that will enable teachers to critically reflect on and rethink attitudes, beliefs, and actions and to become aware of how cultural identity influences their classroom behaviors and instructional practices. Such critical reflection will also enhance their efficacy in meeting needs of all students.

This study provides empirical evidence—based on insights drawn from multicultural education and achievement goal theory—that predicts the relationship between preservice teacher beliefs regarding student diversity and the instructional strategies they are likely to adopt as teachers. Preservice teachers who believed that all students can succeed regardless of background, and preservice teachers who stated that they looked forward to working with culturally diverse students and were confident that they could establish a rapport with them, were more likely to endorse mastery-focused achievement goals. In contrast, preservice teachers who held biased beliefs about poor and minority students felt a certain discomfort in working with students who did not share their culture, were convinced that it is hard for a teacher to establish rapport with students from diverse backgrounds, and were more likely to indicate that they would adopt performance-focused instructional goals in their classrooms.

The results of this study also provide evidence for some of the underlying reasons why teachers and preservice teachers endorse mastery- or performance-focused instructional strategies. Preservice teachers’ cluster membership based on the levels of stereotypical beliefs regarding minority and less affluent students, discomfort in interacting with culturally diverse students, and the belief that students should assimilate into mainstream culture explained 6.8% and 11.8% of the variance in their endorsement of mastery- and performance-focused instructional practices, respectively. The reason for this shared variance between cluster membership and mastery-focused practices may be attributable to the extent to which preservice teachers’ possess the capacity for critical thinking and self-reflection. Preservice teachers who are capable of honest and critical self-reflection regarding their biases (Cluster 1) are likely to carryover these qualities to their classroom behaviors and to their interactions with students. They are less likely to have biased achievement and motivation expectations of their students (Jussim & Harber, 2005; Tennenbaum & Ruck, 2007). In addition, the results suggest that preservice teachers with a more open mind-set are more likely to engage in more reflective teaching practices, encouraging their students to be thoughtful and critical consumers of knowledge—a hallmark of mastery-focused instructional practices.

By the same token, the shared variance between cluster membership and performance-focused instructional practices may be attributable to a mind-set that is more inflexible and rigid. Endorsement of stereotypes is an indirect endorsement of ranking individuals as inferior or superior based on group membership. Such conviction in the accuracy of negative stereotypes is likely to carryover into classroom practices such as encouraging students to strive for superiority over others—a hallmark of performance-focused practices. The data suggest that teachers with this mind-set may feel justified in ranking students from best to worst based on predetermined normative criteria where a student’s success is dependent on the success or failure of other students in the class.

Researchers in general, and achievement goal theorists in particular, have bemoaned the fact that U.S. schools encourage social comparison in the classroom and do not recognize students for taking risks, engaging in challenging tasks, and focusing on learning and improvement. They encourage teachers to engage in mastery-focused practices by pointing out the beneficial and positive effects of mastery-focused environments and the negative effects of performance-focused environments on students’ psychological and academic outcomes (Kumar, Gheen, & Kaplan, 2002; Maehr & Midgley, 1996; Roeser, Midgley, & Urdan, 1996). As a consequence of viewing this phenomenon through the dual lens of multicultural education and achievement goal theory, this study suggests that teachers and preservice teachers are not likely to shift to classroom practices that are more mastery-focused and less performance-focused unless there is a fundamental shift in their mind-set and outlook from one of close-mindedness to one of openness toward all aspects of diversity—physical, social, cultural, and cognitive.

An outcome of using theoretical frameworks from both multicultural education and educational psychology, and making explicit how they relate to each other in framing actual classroom practice, is that it permits students and faculty to see the relationship between coursework both in those disciplines, as well as the effect on practices developed in curriculum and instruction coursework culminating in student teaching (Kumar, 2003). Stereotypical beliefs are related to classroom practices and motivational techniques, as these findings suggest. Therefore, teacher education programs must ensure that preservice teachers understand the relationship between multicultural education, educational psychology, and instructional methods. This can be done in a number of ways including presenting a model depicting the relationships between the three consistently throughout their education coursework. Better still, coursework could be consistently sequenced with the explicit instruction to students that concepts from their educational psychology course would, in their social foundations course, be put into the context of teaching diverse students and both would be used in their methods courses. With this move, obviously, it would be necessary to use consistent terminology and intentional redundancy to make the connections clear and to implement them, as well as to have faculty buy-in to the need for this integration and to have educational psychology and social foundations faculty teach common syllabi, with common goals and objectives and common terminology, across the multiple sections of a course. Toward this end and perhaps even more effective would be faculty from the three areas team-teaching to integrate the three disciplines through project-based approaches—an approach that is increasingly advocated within the field of education (Chibulka, Hollins, Marx, Nolen, & Woolfolk Hoy, 2011).

Limitations and Conclusions

It is important to note that this study is specific to this particular teacher education program, though to the extent that most teacher education programs include an educational psychology course and a social foundations course, as well as introductory, methods, and student teaching coursework, others may find it generalizable to other programs. This particular teacher education program had as its mission, at the time of the study, “Students at the center of their own learning, in a rich intellectual environment, characterized by choice.” Although the program aligned with state and National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) standards concerning preparation of teachers to work with diverse populations, individual course curricula had not been horizontally or vertically integrated to develop any systematic approach to optimize learning about diversity.

Another limitation of this study is the fact that the results are based on self-reported data. Thus, it is probable that the positive changes observed in preservice teachers’ attitudes regarding culturally diverse students may be more reflective of a greater sensitivity to socially desirable answers toward the end of the SDS course than of a real change in stereotype beliefs and comfort in interacting with culturally diverse students. This sensitivity may have diminished over time leading preservice teachers to revert to some degree to more traditional attitudes regarding diversity and to the more commonly adopted performance-focused instructional practices as observed toward the end of the STS course. Most of us are so tightly encapsulated within our own chosen discipline and area of research that we fail to incorporate relevant and important work of colleagues with different philosophical underpinnings, perspectives, and approaches to an issue. If schools are to implement reforms and improvements, educationists and researchers must reach a broader understanding and agreement on what reforms will best serve the needs of all students.

We believe that the achievement goal theory approach, focusing on a contextualized approach to students’ motivations and the behavioral choices, complements the multicultural social-reconstructionist focus on social structures and interactions. Although multicultural education arose out of a political struggle for equality for the underrepresented minority, achievement goal theory was developed by educational psychologists specifically to examine students’ motivation, learning, and performance in school-related tasks and activities. However, researchers in both fields share the common vision of redefining and transforming teacher instructional practices and school policies to enhance their effectiveness for all students. It is time to make the relationships between courses and disciplines explicit and to design teacher education programs to reinforce students’ understanding of and reflection on the relationships as well as their implementation of effective practices based on that understanding.

Future studies examining the relationship among preservice teachers’ attitudes toward cultural diversity and their proposed instructional practices need to examine whether these relationships are mediated by factors such as preservice teachers’ sense of cultural responsibility and cultural sensitivity. The belief measures in this study are explicit self-reports and as such preservice teachers may be unwilling to report on their attitudes in an unbiased manner. In the future, it will be important to examine how implicit attitudes toward student diversity related to preservice teachers’ proposed instructional practices.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

About the Authors

Revathy Kumar is an associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Toledo and an adjunct assistant research scientist at the Institute for Social Research’s Survey Research Center, University of Michigan. She has a PhD in education and psychology from the Combined Program in Education and Psychology, University of Michigan. At the graduate level, she teaches courses in adolescent development, motivational theory and application, cultural perspectives in learning and development, and self and identity. Her first line of research focuses on the social and cultural processes involved in learning, development, and in the construction of a sense of self and identity among adolescents in culturally diverse societies. A second line of research includes examining the effects of individual and contextual factors on youth problem behaviors.

Lynne Hamer, PhD, is associate professor of educational theory and social foundations of education with a joint appointment in educational research and measurement. She received her BA in English and education from Hamline University in 1985, and her PhD in folklore from Indiana University in 1994. At the graduate level, she teaches courses in anthropology of education, educational sociology, and folklore and education, as well as qualitative research methods, qualitative research design, and qualitative data analysis. Her research focuses on continuities and discontinuities between traditional and institutional education, and the use of folkloristic theories, methods, and materials in promoting democratic and social-reconstructionist education.

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